People have been conscious of the need for skin care for thousands of years. For example, the ancient Romans, Greeks and Egyptians applied various natural products to their skin, including olive oil, honey, and sour milk for various reasons, including cleanliness, comfort, beauty, and protection against the sun. Since then, research has confirmed the benefits of using such natural products.
In recent decades, the demand for effective topical creams and lotions that both beautify and protect the skin from free radicals and stress oxidation increases annually. By 2010 it is estimated that $44.6 billion dollars will be spent annually on skin care products. We live in a society that admires healthy skin, because it is essential to beauty. More than ever before, we now understand that both females and males seek out anti-aging products that have the ability to improve their skin and fight against the visual signs of aging. Consumers are particularly interested in products that have added benefits such as antioxidants that fight free radicals that damage skin cells.
As we have learned more about the aging process, coenzyme Q10 and other ubiquinones have emerged as a powerful, potent and effective class of antioxidants, not only for use as dietary supplements, but also as effective ingredients in topical anti-aging skin care products, when used in effective amounts. U.S. Pat. No. 6,906,106, issued to L'Oreal on Jun. 14, 2005, discloses numerous topical anti-aging skin care formulations comprising ubiquinones and derivatives thereof, including CoQ10. The patent also lists thousands of useful known ingredients, and suggests hundreds of thousands of possible combinations thereof, as suitable additions to such formulations. The purposes of all these known ingredients are acknowledged by L'Oreal to be well-known. Examples include water, solvents, oils, emulsifiers, esters, paraffins, fatty alcohols, fatty acids, silicone oils, moisturizers, vitamins, minerals, whiteners, UV filters, flavonoids, and gelling agents.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,150,876, issued to Merck on Dec. 19, 2006, discloses the stabilization of thousands of poly-unsaturated aromatic compounds found in hundreds of household products and health care formulations. The list of compounds to be stabilized includes ubiquinones, and the list of stabilizers appears to include most of the known sunscreens. But there is no disclosure of which sunscreens work best for stabilizing ubiquinones.